Here's an interesting article I would like to share
with all of YOU (Please share with your friends about our blog and LIKE us on our Facebook: ActivFit Lifestyle)
I have no doubt that a scientist somewhere just
read the title of this article and said out loud, "YES! Bryan is right!
That little thing in your head - the hypothalamus - IS the thing keeping you
fat! By George, that Bryan guy isn't a dumb bodybuilder after all -- he's been
doing his research!" At which moment, I will be shaking my head and
thinking, “you need to get out of the lab and into the real world, with real
people, buddy.” Okay, to be fair, Neuro-endocrine control of appetite and body
fat really is quite fascinating. But today, I'm talking about PSYCH-ology,
not PHYSI-ology. The little thing in your head that's keeping you fat is
actually just a….
Limiting belief!
Self-limiting beliefs are among the biggest
problems that people deal with in their struggles to achieve a healthy ideal
weight. They’re also one of the reasons that so many people start to falter or
fall off the diet and exercise wagon as early as late January or early February
in their new year's goal pursuits. Would you agree with me? People want to look
good before the Christmas and new year.
If you're that science guy I spoke of and you're
about to bail because you're thinking, "Here we go again… another
psycho-babble, self help article," then think again. A belief is the force
behind the placebo effect, which is well known by every scientist and medical
professional. A respected doctor gives a patient a pill and is told it's a
powerful drug. The patient gets well immediately, not knowing that the
"miraculous" substance was a dummy pill. Inert & sugar. The
miracle was in the mind.
But beliefs are not only involved in the mind-body
connection, they are unconscious programs that control your behavior. The most important factor in whether you achieve the body and
the health you want is NOT what diet or training program you follow. It’s what
makes you follow your diet and training program. And guess what? What
you believe controls your behavior - whether you will stick with your program or
sabotage it with cheating, bingeing or inconsistency.
What to do about limiting beliefs
Ok, so now you agree that beliefs are psychological
factors that affect you physically by controlling your behavior, including way
of your eating, exercising and lifestyle. What now? 3 steps. 2 questions.
STEP 1: IDENTIFY LIMITING BELIEFS
You are fully aware of many of your beliefs. For
example, beliefs about spirituality or politics are usually in the front of
your conscious mind.
But the beliefs that hold back your health and
physical development the most are usually the ones you don't even know you
have. They are like unconscious "brain software," running silently in
the background.
So the first step is to bring those unconscious and
potentially damaging beliefs up to the surface so you are aware of them. You
can't fix a problem if you don't know you have one.
2 Quick Questions That Will Help Draw Out Your
Beliefs
Beliefs can go back to childhood, but don't worry,
you don't have to go to a psychotherapist and be regressed back to
kindergarten. It's simpler than that. But it does pay to do this questioning
process as a formal “exercise” with serious quiet time, with pen and paper
(instead of just thinking about it).
Question #1: What causes
me to be overweight (or unhealthy, or not having the body I want)?
Question #2: What’s
preventing me from getting leaner? (or healthier?)
Spend some time with it and see how big of a list
you can create. Ask yourself whether each belief helps or hurts you. Does it
move you forward or backward. Does it empower or disempower you? The ones that
hurt you or hold you back will be obvious. You may come up with beliefs such
as:
"I'm
overweight and I can't get leaner because":
1.
I have no time
2. I’m too old
3. I can’t stop eating
4. I hate exercise
5. You just can’t do it when you have 4 kids
6.
It's impossible after having a hip replacement
But the million dollar question is; Are these
beliefs actually true?
Beliefs are not facts. You may hold your beliefs as
absolute reality, but when you deconstruct them and challenge them, you may see
that they don't hold any water.
Self limiting beliefs are false interpretations
(negative thought patterns) that hold you back. And you keep holding on to them
because making excuses and staying the same is a lot more convenient than
changing isn't it? Change requires hard work, effort and leaving your comfort
zone.
Your
mission now: weaken the
limiting beliefs and get rid of them
STEP 2: CHALLENGE THOSE BELIEFS
How do you challenge a belief? 4 ways:
(A) Challenge it directly: Is the belief even valid at all? See if you can find a "counter
example" that disproves your belief. For example; if you think that after
you’ve had 3 or 4 kids, it's impossible to get a nice flat stomach, what will
you say after I introduce you to a dozen of my clients and readers who had 3 or
4 kids and went from bulging belly to rock-hard flat stomach? If they did it,
then how could your belief be valid? Answer: It WASN’T! You believed something
false and inaccurate and it was holding you back!
(B) Challenge the source:Is it your belief, or have you been living what your parents,
peers or culture handed down to you? Just the realization that a belief wasn’t
yours to begin with is enough to shatter it.
(C) Challenge the usefulness of the belief. Ok, so you believed something when you were younger. Does still
believing it has any usefulness today? Does it help you move closer to what you
want in your life today? If not, then when today would be a good time to get
rid of it?
(D) Challenging the belief by weighing the
consequences. If you keep this belief, what is it going to cost
you? What will the pain be like? What will you miss? And what will these
consequences be if you don’t change it NOW?
STEP 3: INSTALL A NEW BELIEF
Nature abhors a vacuum, as Spinoza once said. You
don't simply get rid of a belief, you also must replace it. What things would
you want and need to believe instead that would create positive behaviors that
would move you toward your goal? Write them down, then massage them into an
affirmation. For example, if you've hung your hat on the belief that you didn't
have time to exercise, could you write a new affirmation of belief similar to
this?
"I'm a very busy person, so that means I must
set clear priorities and I must keep my health and body on the top of my
priority list. I always schedule time for my most important priorities, I am
efficient with my training, and I use every minute of my day wisely. And if
Barack Obama, the busiest person in the world, can train for 45 minutes a day 6
days a week, there's no excuse for me. I can do it too.”
Write down your new belief affirmations and read
them, right along with your goals, every day.
Then "activate" this affirmation by doing
what Olympic and professional athletes do: engaging in mental rehearsal.
Visualize yourself carrying out the behaviors that this belief would generate.
Think about and feel what it would be like to take those positive actions steps
and play mental movies of how your life would change by doing so. Involve all
your senses: see it, hear it, feel it.
Keep it up until you start to see your behavior
change and your habitual actions come into alignment with your
goals/intentions. If you’re diligent, you'll see changes in attitude and
behavior with 21-30 days. It may happen sooner. It may take longer if you’ve
carried deep, lifelong limiting beliefs. But in less than a month, the roots of
the new belief pattern will be formed.
Then you can update your goals and affirmations to
reflect your current priorities and move on to the next goal you want to
achieve or the next limiting belief you want to change. Keep THAT up, and
pretty soon, you will be LIMIT-LESS!
Spending quality time understanding and working on
your beliefs is a lot more productive than spending time in forums arguing
about whether a low carb program is better than high carb program… or even
whether the cure for obesity is found in the arcuate nucleus of the lower
hypothalamus. It's in your head allright… but most people have been looking in
the wrong place.
Above article contributed by Bryan V (PIMST, FFT
Certified, Kinesiology Degree, CSCS, ACSM)
1 comment:
Totally agree!! It's all in the mind and it's a LIFESTYLE change. One must be prepared, mentally.
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